After what feels like a never-ending stream of bad news about the COVID-19 pandemic, a bit of good news started to trickle into the market last week with an announcement by Pfizer that it had achieved a better than 90 percent success rate with minimal negative side effects for its COVID-19 vaccine. That was followed up with news out Monday (Nov. 16) that Cambridge-based biotech Moderna also had a vaccine with an efficacy rate of 95 percent that required a less high-tech set up for distribution to patients.
In the face of climbing case numbers and closures of non-essential businesses going into effect in the U.S. and around the world, the news that an effective vaccine against the disease currently gearing up to throw a wrench into the holiday season is certainly a welcome change of pace for everyone.
Or almost everyone, as it turns out. Because the news that a vaccine might be in the offing in the not-too-distant future hit certain stocks like a hammer last week — affecting what media outlets have been referring to as “the stay at home” companies that have enjoyed a particularly big boost over the eight months or so the pandemic has been in effect. The market’s logic is clear — if the pandemic is coming to an end, so too is the era of ascendance these firms have been enjoying in 2020. After all, who will need Netflix, a Peloton or Amazon when they can go to the movie, hit their spin class at the gym or shop in a store?
And yet, according to new PYMNTS data, the consumers most excited to get a vaccine are also the ones who have made the biggest digital shifts in their day-to-day lives. Why? They like the convenience of a digital-first lifestyle. They like ordering groceries more than they like going to the grocery store. They are former analog beings having a digital experience and they like it. However, “digital shifters” are not looking to be stuck in park either. They are motivated to get the vaccine in order to re-engage in the physical world activities that have been denied to them since March. The difference is, the digital shifters will choose those physical activities based on their preference — not forced choices.
The Stock Slide
It was tough times on the stock market last week for a lot of firms that haven’t had too many of them since the pandemic broke out and their services reached wholly new levels of relevance to consumers. Peloton saw its stock drop 7.3 percent, and Zoom took a 5.4 percent hit in the market. Meanwhile Amazon, Netflix and DocuSign all saw their stock prices hit, albeit by smaller amounts.
What all these players have in common, of course, is that over the last several months as consumers have relocated their lives to their domiciles they’ve done very big business and seen their share prices increase by double and in some cases triple-digit amounts as demand for their products and services has soared. It’s demand that investors are now anticipating falling off as the vaccine becomes widespread and consumers have a much richer palette of options to draw from in terms of how they shop, how they work, how they seek medical treatment and entertain themselves.
The New Digital Consumers
As it turns out, when PYMNTS surveyed consumers just as the Pfizer news was breaking, it found that among those who have shifted at least one of their daily activities to a digital track, 64 percent who have shifted at least one or more digital activities reported strong intentions to get a vaccine when available. Those consumers have shifted based on fears of going into stores or a wish to minimize their encounters if they do enter a store. Interest in getting the vaccine is the greatest among those who have largely shifted to digital for shopping for retail products (42.3 percent), buying food at the grocery store (46.2 percent) and ordering food for delivery or takeout at restaurants (40.4 percent).
The vast majority of digital shifters surveyed (80 percent) also say they are most likely to stick with most or all of their newly acquired digital-first habits. They will stick with their new behaviors for shopping for groceries, shopping retail or eating at restaurants even after getting the vaccine because they are attracted to the convenience, not because they are tied to their locked-down condition. When digital shifters re-engage the physical world they will be shaped by their new digital habits as a matter of choice.
Eight-plus months of adapting to a digital-first life has had a big effect on what consumers want going forward — 47 percent of consumers have shifted their retail shopping habits to digital, and so have 21 percent of consumers shopping for groceries and 21 percent of consumers who eat at restaurants. Five times as many consumers have adopted digital-first habits at restaurants, four times as many have adopted digital-first habits when shopping for retail products and nearly six times as many consumers have shifted to digital when shopping for groceries since March.
And clearly many have found a lot of those changes to be for the better.
Once the vaccine is available and deployed, consumers told PYMNTS that they want to return seeing friends and family, traveling domestically, going to leisure events like concerts and sporting events and dining in restaurants. The list reflects the activities for which digital or digital-first has been more of a “have-to” experience rather than a “want-to” experience and where there’s pent-up demand to participate in the activities that have been off-limits since the pandemic started.
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